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Tag: afghan taliban

  • UN chief tells Security Council: Afghanistan ‘hanging by thread’

    Afghanistan is “hanging by a thread,” with thousands and thousands struggling excessive starvation, schooling and social providers getting ready to collapse and a scarcity of liquidity limiting the capability to achieve folks in want, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres advised the Security Council on Wednesday.
    “We must droop the principles and situations that constrict not solely Afghanistan’s financial system, however our lifesaving operations.
    At this second of most want, these guidelines should be critically reviewed,” Guterres advised the 15-member council.
    He once more known as for international locations to difficulty normal licenses overlaying transactions essential to all humanitarian actions.

    “We need to give financial institutions and commercial partners legal assurance that they can work with humanitarian operators without fear of breaching sanctions,” Guterres stated.
    Some $9.5 billion in Afghan central financial institution reserves stay blocked exterior the nation and worldwide help given to the earlier authorities has dried up for the reason that Taliban seized energy final August.

    “We need to jump-start Afghanistan’s economy through increased liquidity. We must pull the economy back from the brink. This means finding ways to free up frozen currency reserves and re-engage Afghanistan’s Central Bank,” Guterres stated.
    In December, donors to a frozen World Bank-administered Afghan Reconstruction Trust Fund agreed to switch $280 million to the World Food Program (WFP) and U.N. kids’s company UNICEF to help diet and well being in Afghanistan.
    “We need the remaining $1.2 billion to be freed up urgently, to help Afghanistan’s people survive the winter,” Guterres stated.
    “Time is of the essence.”
    The United Nations earlier this month appealed for $4.4 billion in humanitarian assist for Afghanistan in 2022. On Wednesday, it stated it wanted an additional $3.6 billion for well being and schooling, primary infrastructure, promotion of livelihoods and social cohesion, particularly the wants of ladies and women.

    The United Nations has pledged to work with international locations to make sure that funds usually are not diverted or misused, however the U.N. particular envoy on Afghanistan, Deborah Lyons, famous on Wednesday that there was nonetheless reluctance amongst donors to unlock funds.
    “It is clear that donors, who face their own domestic constituencies, are still not satisfied with the political progress in Afghanistan and are watching closely for encouraging signals,” Lyons stated.

  • Pakistani policeman, 2 gunmen killed in shootout in capital

    Two gunmen opened hearth at cops manning a roadside checkpoint within the capital, Islamabad, on Monday evening, triggering a shootout that killed an officer and each assailants, police stated.
    Two policemen have been additionally wounded within the assault close to a market, the Islamabad police stated in an announcement. They stated the wounded officers have been taken to hospital. Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed condemned the assault and ordered an investigation.
    No one instantly claimed duty for the assault and police are nonetheless investigating. Although militants typically goal safety forces in Pakistan, such assaults in Islamabad are uncommon.
    Last Friday, militants attacked a military submit within the restive northwest, bordering Afghanistan, triggering an intense shootout that killed a Pakistani soldier. The Pakistani Taliban, who’ve been emboldened because the Afghan Taliban seized energy within the neighboring nation, claimed duty for the assault.

  • US won’t punish troops for lethal Kabul drone assault

    The Pentagon mentioned that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has accredited suggestions for enhancements in strike operations from the generals who lead US Central Command and Special Operations Command, based mostly on the findings of an unbiased Pentagon evaluation launched final month. There have been no suggestions for self-discipline made by the generals, mentioned John Kirby, chief Pentagon spokesman.
    The evaluation, performed by Air Force Lt. Gen. Sami Said and endorsed by Austin in November, discovered there have been breakdowns in communication and within the means of figuring out and confirming the goal of the bombing, which killed 10 civilians, together with seven kids. But he concluded that the strike was a tragic mistake and never attributable to misconduct or negligence.

    Austin requested Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of Central Command, and Gen. Richard Clarke, head of Special Operations Command, to evaluation Said’s conclusions and are available again to him with suggestions. The two commanders agreed with Said’s findings, and they didn’t advocate any self-discipline. Kirby mentioned Monday that Austin endorsed their selections, together with the dearth of disciplinary actions.
    “None of their recommendations dealt specifically with issues of accountability,” Kirby mentioned. “So I do not anticipate there being issues of personal accountability to be had with respect to the August 29th airstrike.”
    The Aug 29 drone strike on a white Toyota Corolla sedan killed Zemerai Ahmadi and 9 members of the family, together with seven kids. Ahmadi, 37, was a longtime worker of an American humanitarian organisation.
    Afghan journalists take a images of destroyed automobile inside a home after US drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug 29, 2021. (AP)
    “We know that there will be some who don’t like this particular decision, but it wasn’t an outcome that we came to without careful thought and consideration,” mentioned Kirby. He mentioned that if Austin “believed that accountability was warranted and needed, he would certainly support those kinds of efforts.”
    Steven Kwon, founding father of Nutrition & Education International, the help organisation Zemari labored for, known as the disciplinary choice surprising on Monday.
    “How can our military wrongly take the lives of ten precious Afghan people, and hold no one accountable in any way?” he mentioned. “When the Pentagon absolves itself of accountability, it sends a dangerous and misleading message that its actions were somehow justified.”
    In this Aug. 29, 2021 picture, Afghans examine injury of Ahmadi household home after US drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan. (AP)
    The intelligence in regards to the automotive and its potential risk got here simply days after an Islamic State suicide bomber killed 13 US troops and 169 Afghans at a Kabul airport gate. The US was working to evacuate hundreds of Americans, Afghans and different allies within the wake of the collapse of the nation’s authorities.
    Said concluded that US forces genuinely believed that the automotive they have been following was an imminent risk and that they wanted to strike it earlier than it obtained nearer to the airport. He concluded that higher communication between these making the strike choice and different assist personnel might need raised extra doubts in regards to the bombing, however ultimately might not have prevented it.
    He made quite a lot of suggestions, together with that extra be performed to stop what army officers name “confirmation bias” — the concept that troops making the strike choice have been too fast to conclude that what they have been seeing aligned with the intelligence and confirmed their conclusion to bomb what turned out to be the fallacious automotive.

    And he mentioned the army ought to have personnel current with a strike staff, and their job must be to actively query such conclusions. He additionally really helpful that the army enhance its procedures to make sure that kids and different harmless civilians are usually not current earlier than launching a time-sensitive strike.
    Officials mentioned McKenzie and Clarke largely agreed with Said’s suggestions.
    The US is working to pay monetary reparations to the family members and surviving members of the family, and doubtlessly get them out of Afghanistan, however nothing has been finalised. Asked why it was taking so lengthy, Kirby mentioned the US needs to make it possible for the household is gotten out as safely as doable, and that prime stage discussions about which can be ongoing.

  • UN committee agrees Taliban, Myanmar junta not allowed in UN for now

    A UN committee on Wednesday deferred a choice on who will symbolize Afghanistan and Myanmar on the United Nations, mentioned the panel’s chair, that means the Afghan Taliban and Myanmar junta won’t be allowed into the world physique for now.
    Rival claims have been made for the seats of each international locations with the Taliban and Myanmar’s junta pitted towards ambassadors appointed by the governments they ousted this 12 months.
    UN acceptance of the Taliban or Myanmar’s junta can be a step towards the worldwide recognition sought by each.
    The nine-member UN credentials committee, which incorporates Russia, China and the United States, met at UN headquarters to contemplate the credentials of all 193 members for the present session of the UN General Assembly.

    Several diplomats had advised Reuters that the committee was more likely to defer its selections on the illustration of Afghanistan and Myanmar on the understanding that the present ambassadors for each international locations stay in these seats.
    While the committee chair, Sweden’s UN Ambassador Anna Karin Enestrom, advised reporters the choices had been deferred, she declined to touch upon whether or not the present ambassadors for Afghanistan and Myanmar would nonetheless symbolize their international locations.
    The committee – which additionally contains the Bahamas, Bhutan, Chile, Namibia, Sierra Leone and Sweden – will now ship its report on the credentials of all members to the UN General Assembly for approval earlier than the tip of the 12 months.
    Both the committee and the General Assembly historically make selections on credentials by consensus, diplomats say.

    Leverage
    The Taliban, which seized energy in mid-August from the internationally acknowledged authorities, has nominated its Doha-based spokesman Suhail Shaheen as Afghanistan’s UN ambassador.
    The present UN ambassador appointed by the ousted authorities, Ghulam Isaczai, has additionally requested to maintain the seat.
    When the Taliban final dominated Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001, the ambassador of the federal government they toppled remained the UN consultant after the credentials committee deferred its choice on rival claims to the seat.

    UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has mentioned that the Taliban’s want for worldwide recognition is the one leverage different international locations must press for inclusive authorities and respect for rights, notably for girls, in Afghanistan.
    The Taliban’s nominated UN envoy Shaheen posted on Twitter final month: “We have all the conditions needed for occupying the seat of Afghanistan at UN We hope legal requirements will supersede political preferences.”

    Myanmar’s junta, which seized energy from Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected authorities in February, has put ahead navy veteran Aung Thurein to be its UN envoy. Current Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun – appointed by Suu Kyi’s authorities – has additionally requested to resume his UN accreditation,regardless of being the goal of a plot to kill or injure him over his opposition to the coup.
    The former UN particular envoy on Myanmar, who stepped down final month, warned that no nation ought to acknowledge or legitimize the junta, whereas Guterres pledged in February to mobilize stress “to make sure that this coup fails.”

  • When the Taliban are in your bed room

    When the Taliban are in your bed room and there’s {a photograph} of you on the wall holding an American flag, a rifle and dressed like a recruiting industrial for the Marines, you need to preserve it collectively.
    Then there’s the kitschy mug in your desk that you simply picked up from a store simply as Bagram Air Base closed in July. It reads, “Been there … done that/Operation Enduring Freedom.”
    And the empty beer can in your trash that you simply drank the night time earlier than Kabul fell in August once you had a sense this is likely to be the final beer you drink in Afghanistan for awhile as a result of the insurgents-turned-rulers don’t take kindly to booze.
    And that picture of you in uniform? Taken simply earlier than the most important operation in opposition to the Taliban of the U.S. conflict in Afghanistan, once you had been a Marine in Helmand province greater than a decade in the past. That was when the insurgents had been shadows within the reverse tree line, however now, in October, they’re toes away, standing subsequent to your mattress, separated by a decade and a misplaced conflict.
    As armed Taliban inspected the New York Times bureau in Kabul, they had been escorted by a journalist who was a U.S. Marine Ñ the picture of him in uniform was plain for all to see, and ponder.
    But the Taliban aren’t right here to take something or kill you, although they’d loads of possibilities to just do that once you deployed in 2008, and in 2009. Or once you had been a journalist within the nation years afterward.
    But they nonetheless managed to kill some guys in your unit and blew others in half, one thing not misplaced on you as they decide up and put again a memorial bracelet engraved with the names of your pals (Josh, Matt and Brandon) and a line from a John McCrae poem: “We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow.”
    These Talibs insist they’re right here to verify nothing has been stolen from what was as soon as The New York Times Kabul bureau, and that every part is correct the place we left it when all of the newspaper’s workers members fled the nation, like hundreds of different Afghans and foreigners did, in August because the Afghan authorities collapsed.
    And every part is correct the place I left it. There’s the brand new Xbox I purchased at Dubai International Airport after I flew again into Afghanistan in late July, nearly two weeks earlier than Kabul fell, considering that Kabul wouldn’t fall and that I’d have loads of time to play Microsoft Flight Simulator. My soiled laundry is within the hamper. My mattress is made. There is a skinny layer of mud on every part.
    This is the fact now: the top of the conflict and the brand new starting of the Islamic Emirate.
    A can of soda is roofed with a layer of mud on the New York Times bureau in Kabul, Afghanistan, Oct. 28, 2021.  (Victor J. Blue/The New York Times)
    The most distinct and reoccurring reminders of the lengthy U.S. presence are the black American-supplied rifles now cradled by Taliban at checkpoints and on amusement rides and slung on the again of their motorbikes. The acquainted and intrusive thunder of the helicopters flying into the U.S. Embassy is not any extra, as a result of the U.S. Embassy is not any extra, and the encircling Green Zone belongs to the Taliban.
    The Green Zone, or worldwide zone, was blocks of concrete blast partitions constructed round what was as soon as an prosperous neighborhood with tree-lined streets, till it was become a fortress that related the American Embassy and NATO’s Resolute Support headquarters and a handful of different diplomatic missions.
    Now all that infrastructure is only a skeleton of a 20-year conflict, misplaced by the diplomats and troopers who as soon as lived inside it: a museum to failure.
    It’s the place The Times and different information businesses stored their bureaus, and the place I had returned final month to proceed protection of Afghanistan and examine what had occurred to our compound.
    It’s the place the State Department contractors had a little bit base with a supposed Starbucks inside. It’s the place embassy workers members dared not enterprise away from as a result of the conflict was on. It’s the place armored vehicles had been deserted as Westerners scurried onto helicopters, in order that they may very well be ferried in a foreign country because the Taliban entered the town.
    The Taliban now do what they please within the Green Zone. They’re investigating the deserted buildings, in search of spies and weapons or something that would hurt them as a result of the individuals inside the Green Zone as soon as did simply that, operating the conflict from behind its partitions. A blimp with cameras as soon as floated above it, watching every part within the metropolis in colour and infrared. At Resolute Support headquarters, American officers approved airstrikes that killed Taliban and civilians alike.
    Why wouldn’t the Taliban search each nook? Look beneath each desk? To them, it’s nearly just like the Green Zone is the Dragon King Under the Mountain, one thing that would flip the conflict again on in the event that they in some way woke it up.
    “Are there military weapons here?” one Talib asks us, standing on the second ground of The Times bureau in a room the place the safety supervisor as soon as painted miniature troopers. He carried a suitcase filled with them in a foreign country because it collapsed.
    No, there aren’t any navy weapons.
    One Talib factors to the physique armor on prime of a closet. “This is military, no?” he asks in near-perfect English. “Why would you need this?”
    We wanted the physique armor as a result of we had been overlaying the conflict that simply ended, the place individuals killed each other with roadside bombs and artillery and airstrikes and Kalashnikovs. His query is nearly obscene, as if the violence his band of insurgents and the Western-backed Afghan authorities and NATO and the United States perpetrated had existed in some parallel universe.
    We reply courteously as a result of our new landlords are carrying plenty of weapons with them.
    I throw away a membership soda that has been sitting on the kitchen desk since August. The fridge is rancid. The backyard is overgrown.
    The Taliban stroll by means of the bureau inspecting a house and workplace frozen in the intervening time of collapse. On the mattress within the room reverse mine is an open suitcase, half-packed, garments scattered about. In the small newsroom downstairs, the white board that marked the autumn of provincial capitals continues to be there, though ultimately, the nation fell aside too quick to trace.
    On the wall is a map of the town of Kunduz and the place the Taliban entrance strains as soon as had been, with the insurgents held in examine for a number of transient weeks by the demoralized and depleted Afghan safety forces earlier than they evaporated and the town fell.
    Now, in Kabul, the Taliban are driving round within the Afghan navy’s vehicles and Humvees and armored personnel carriers, and sporting their uniforms.
    “Free cars,” one Talib had messaged me days earlier from the entrance seat of some armored SUV that had belonged to a contracting firm or got here from an deserted navy motor pool. He then despatched an image of his rifle, additionally free, with its markings circled: “Property of U.S. Gov. M4 Carbine. Cal 5.56 MM W0207610.”
    This is what shedding a conflict appears to be like like. And the Taliban are nonetheless in my bed room.
    One appears to be like about the identical age I used to be in that {photograph} on my wall the place I’m standing beside a huge and newly unpackaged American flag, holding that rifle and grinning, as a result of I assumed then we had been going to win the conflict or flip the tide or kill the fellows who at the moment are sifting by means of my wardrobe, pointing to a pair of sneakers in my closet. The very footwear had been the topic of an article we wrote: “In Afghanistan, Follow the White High-Tops and You’ll Find the Taliban.”
    He smiles, factors and tries them on.

  • Pakistan inside minister defends talks with banned terror group TTP

    Pakistan’s Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid has defended the federal government’s transfer to carry talks with banned terror group Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) for “reconciliation”, saying the negotiations are for “good Taliban”.
    Rashid’s remarks got here after Prime Minister Imran Khan in an interview with Turkish government-owned TRT World information channel revealed that his authorities was in talks with the TTP with the assistance of the Taliban in Afghanistan, drawing criticism from politicians and victims of terrorism.
    The TTP, generally often known as the Pakistani Taliban, is a banned terrorist organisation primarily based alongside the Afghan-Pakistan border.
    Defending the federal government’s transfer, the minister stated the supply was not for militants who had been chargeable for bloodshed within the nation, together with the December 2014 bloodbath within the Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar which left over 150 individuals lifeless, Dawn newspaper reported.

    “We know very well who’s good and who’s bad. Anyone who thinks we are not aware of that, he’s mistaken, he doesn’t have sense,” he stated.
    The supply of talks was just for “good Taliban” and negotiations on this had been happening on the “highest-level,” he stated.
    He maintained that it was not acceptable to combat with those that have surrendered to undertake peaceable lives.

    “The case of those who were involved in incidents like the APS is different. And the case of those who left the country for different reasons is different,” he stated on Friday whereas responding to a query in regards to the benefit and mechanism of talks with the TTP.
    “We are not surrendering to anyone and this process is at a very early phase. No one needs to jump to conclusions at this stage.”
    Prime Minister Khan on Friday provided amnesty to the TTP offered the militant organisation lay down arms, disclosing that the federal government was holding talks with some teams of the outfit looking for reconciliation.

    The disclosure attracted a robust response, primarily from the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), which questioned the transfer to carry negotiations with the TTP with out taking Parliament into confidence, arguing that it will solely add to the ache and grief of the households of the martyrs.
    The TTP has been concerned in numerous assaults in Pakistan for greater than a decade which killed 1000’s of individuals. The authorities is now attempting to make use of the affect of the Afghan Taliban over the TTP to succeed in a peace deal and finish violence.

  • For Afghan parkour teams, return of Taliban spells finish of free run

    Holed up in a dormitory in Kabul, Qudrat Frotan breaks down remembering the final time he stepped outdoors. The 23-year-old was among the many determined Afghans who swarmed the worldwide airport on Monday to flee the nation after the Taliban captured the capital. An explosion, the ensuing stampede and accidents to his roommate made Frotan retreat.
    Qudrat Frotan returned from the Kabul International Airport after his pal suffered accidents on Monday.
    “My friend has 16 stitches on his head. His right arm is broken. I saw two girls lying on the ground but no one dared to pick them up and take them to the hospital,” Frotan tells The Indian Express. “I rushed back to the dormitory and haven’t left. I am like a prisoner. All I’m hearing is that the Taliban are inspecting houses and people on their list are being taken away.”
    Frotan has purpose to be apprehensive.
    “We worked for peace and equality among the boys and girls of Afghanistan through parkour. That is against the will of the Taliban, and anything against their will is punished.”
    Frotan, one of many architects of Afghanistan’s vibrant parkour scene, taught younger acrobats to leap, roll, vault over and beneath the obstacles within the urbanscape. In 2018, he based the Afghan Parkour Society which organised workshops and exhibits in 18 provinces. Last 12 months, he was adjudged ‘Peace Ambassador’ by the International Parkour Federation.
    “I don’t think we will be able to work with Afghan youth anymore,” Frotan says. “Most of our active members have gone to Iran, Pakistan… I am scared and waiting for help. If nothing happens, I will have to go to Iran illegally.”
    From its roots in navy coaching in pre-World War I France, parkour, or free-running, advanced into an underground excessive sport, then a metaphysical martial artwork, earlier than changing into the most recent health craze amongst health club rats. Its exponents are a part of Madonna’s dance troupe and James Bond’s rogues’ gallery. They are topics of documentaries and YouTube movies of daredevilry and one-upmanship.
    In Afghanistan, nevertheless, parkour meant freedom. The practitioners, at the moment operating away and laying low, have spent their lives operating by way of obstacles and by no means staying nonetheless. The streets patrolled by gunmen now had been a playground and canvas rolled into one. Wide-eyed pedestrians and motorists stopped to observe because the teams scaled drainage pipes and backflipped off partitions. Kabul was the pleasant neighbourhood and the pioneers of parkour its Spider-Men.

    “The kids really admired us. They would tell us, ‘You are jumping, flying like Spider-Man’,” Jamil Shirzad affords a weak snort. “They saw the cartoons and films and witnessed the stunts in real life. That inspired them.”
    Shirzad, 28, based the Kabul Boys Parkour near a decade in the past. What started as a three-man operation grew to incorporate 60 members. The group’s progress has been catalogued by a number of documentaries.
    “We made motivational videos for those who are really hopeless in Afghanistan. We performed for kids in orphanages and on live television. There were competitive events as well,” says Shirzad. “The talent in Afghanistan attracted foreign journalists, parkour athletes to come here and make documentaries. We filmed with BBC, Voice of America, Discovery. Journalists and parkour enthusiasts from Czech Republic, Germany, China, Japan, Pakistan and Iran came to visit us.”
    With nice energy, got here nice duty.
    “Parkour was about introducing a new sport to the youth and also to show the positive side of Afghanistan to the world,” Shirzad says.
    With a scarcity of health club and coaching amenities, Afghan parkour took to the battle ruins on the sting of Kabul. Scaling and leaping from one level to a different within the dilapidated buildings served two functions: more durable ‘obstacle courses’ and reminders of the nation’s strife-filled historical past.
    “The youth of Afghanistan didn’t want to go back to the bitter history. These wars in Afghanistan had left everyone traumatised. They were all looking for peace and freedom, which they found in parkour,” says Frotan. “Young people were very frustrated and there was no trust among them. Everyone was facing psychological challenges. By doing parkour, they learned how to get over the mental blocks as well as the problems in their lives. Thinking is the solution, not violence.”
    The parkour collective was additionally a struggle for gender equality in Afghanistan. The teams imagine that the act of instructing girls has made them targets of the Taliban.
    The parkour collective was additionally a struggle for gender equality; the teams imagine that the act of instructing girls has made them targets.
    “We fought for gender rights, to train girls to be active, to train girls in self-defence. They would perform on the streets,” says Shirzad. “It was about going towards a better future and a better life but that dream has been shattered. We are living in a nightmare now.”
    As of Friday night, Shirzad hasn’t slept in 60 hours. Like the remainder of his Kabul Boys Parkour colleagues, he too is in hiding. The days are spent awaiting calls from his mom and siblings and directing his teammates to completely different, safer areas.

    “In Taliban’s minds, we were breakdancing, free-running with foreigners and journalists. We were introducing the culture to them, which is out of Islam. That we were informing them,” he says. “They are with their cars everywhere, carrying guns. It is a very scary situation for us and our only dream is survival right now.”
    Survival, even day-to-day, is difficult.
    “There’s no market for the vendors. There’s no food on the table of poor people. The banks are closed, ATMs are closed. Everything’s frozen. Nobody has any cash. To even get some food is becoming difficult. We have four hours of electricity and the internet is very expensive. There’s no way of staying connected with each other.”
    Shirzad says he takes a threat each time he posts on Instagram, asking for serving to palms and secure passage. The parkour fraternity has been supportive however the group requires tangible help.
    “I will be a loser leader if I leave Afghanistan before my members. The embassies are only evacuating those who work with them. We were activists for sports, we were activists for gender rights, we were activists for motivating the youth, performing and teaching free of cost. But we will not be considered.”
    Shirzad spent years instructing a mantra to the Afghan youth: “you can jump over any obstacle.” He admits the present problem although appears insurmountable.
    “As a leader, I cannot accept failure. But the reality is that this isn’t just the end of parkour in Afghanistan. It feels like the end of all life.”

  • Ashraf Ghani: departing Afghan president who did not make peace with Taliban

    Ashraf Ghani, who left Afghanistan on Sunday following the Taliban’s fast advance by the nation and into Kabul, was twice elected Afghan president, in addition to being one of many nation’s best-known lecturers.
    President Ghani left the nation hours after the Taliban entered the capital, authorities officers mentioned. It was not but clear the place he was headed, or how energy can be transferred.
    First elected president in 2014, Ghani took over from Hamid Karzai, who led Afghanistan after the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, and oversaw the conclusion of the U.S. fight mission, the near-complete withdrawal of overseas forces from the nation, in addition to a fractious peace course of with the rebel Taliban.
    He made the trouble to finish a long time of warfare his high precedence, regardless of persevering with assaults on his authorities and safety forces by the Taliban, and started peace talks with the insurgents within the Qatari capital of Doha in 2020.
    However, Ghani, recognized for his fast mood alongside his deep pondering, was by no means accepted by the Taliban and peace talks made little headway.
    Foreign governments have been pissed off by the sluggish progress of talks, and calls grew for an interim authorities to interchange his administration.

    During his presidency, he managed to nominate a brand new technology of younger, educated Afghans into management positions at a time the nation’s energy corridors have been occupied by a handful of elite figures and patronage networks.
    He promised to combat rampant corruption, repair a crippled financial system and remodel the nation right into a regional commerce hub between Central and South Asia – however was unable to ship on most of those guarantees.
    Long Road
    A U.S.-trained anthropologist, Ghani holds a doctorate from New York City’s Columbia University and was named one of many “World’s Top 100 Global Thinkers” by Foreign Policy journal in 2010.
    His street to the presidency was hard-fought.

    He spent nearly 1 / 4 of century outdoors Afghanistan throughout the tumultuous a long time of Soviet rule, civil warfare and the Taliban years in energy.
    During that interval, he labored as an educational within the United States and later with the World Bank and the United Nations throughout East and South Asia.
    Within months of the occasions of the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, he resigned from his worldwide posts and returned to Kabul to develop into a senior advisor to newly-appointed President Karzai.

    He served as Afghan finance minister in 2002, however fell out with Karzai, and, in 2004, was appointed chancellor of Kabul University, the place he was seen as an efficient reformer in addition to forming a Washington-based thinktank that labored on insurance policies to empower among the world’s most impoverished folks.
    In 2009, Ghani, who belongs to Afghanistan’s majority Pashtun ethnicity like Karzai, ran for president however got here in fourth, securing about 4% of the nationwide vote.
    He continued to work in necessary roles in Afghanistan, together with as Afghanistan’s “transition czar”, chairing a physique overseeing safety transition from NATO to Afghans.

    With Karzai barred by the Afghan structure from standing for a 3rd time, Ghani mounted a profitable second marketing campaign in 2014. He was re-elected in 2019.
    His relationship with Washington and different Western capitals was uneasy.
    He was a vocal critic of what he termed wasted worldwide assist in Afghanistan and infrequently didn’t see eye to eye with the West’s Afghan technique, significantly as they seemed to fast-track a sluggish and painful peace course of with the Taliban.
    In an interview with the BBC, Ghani mentioned: “the future will be determined by the people of Afghanistan, not by somebody sitting behind the desk, dreaming”.

  • Afghan management has to find out if they’ve the political will to battle again: US

    Amid Taliban forces more and more gaining floor in Afghanistan with some accounts placing 60 per cent of its territory beneath their management, the White House Wednesday stated it’s for the Afghan management to find out if they’ve the political will to battle again.
    The Biden administration asserted that the Afghan nationwide forces, which has been skilled by it for 20 years now, has the capabilities and gear to battle again.

    “Ultimately, the Afghan National Security Defence Forces have the equipment, numbers and training to fight back. They have what they need. What they need to determine is if they have the political will to fight back and if they have the ability to unite as leaders to fight back. That’s really where it stands at this point,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki informed reporters at her every day information convention.
    The United States, she stated, is intently watching the deteriorating safety situations in elements of the nation, however no explicit end result is inevitable.
    “We will continue to coordinate airstrikes with and in support of Afghan forces. And as the President made clear, Afghan leaders have to come together and the future of the country is really on their shoulders,” she stated.

    Nearby on the Foggy Bottom headquarters of the State Department, its spokesperson Ned Price famous that US’s ways are altering in Afghanistan.
    “The President has made the decision to withdraw our military forces. That says nothing about our support for the rights of the people of Afghanistan and what we have done and will continue to strive to do to bring stability and security to the people of Afghanistan, right now as we speak, through a diplomatic process. And I know you tend to discount diplomacy,” he stated.
    In Doha, its Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad and his crew participated in a gathering of the prolonged troika, that’s to say, the United States, Russia, China, and Pakistan, he stated.
    There, the nations aligned efforts to press the Taliban to scale back violence, to have interaction critically and urgently and Afghan peace negotiations, together with the basic points wanted to resolve the battle, he added.
    “Tomorrow there will be a broader set of countries, we expect, that will come together,” he stated.
    A map exhibiting areas managed by Taliban. (Photo: AP)
    “All of this is our intention to forge a consensus and to have the international community, including countries in the region and beyond, to speak with one voice. Both sets of these meetings this week included briefings from both the Islamic Republic, that’s the Afghan government, and from the Taliban negotiating teams,” he stated.
    “Abdullah Abdullah, the chairman, is there representing the Afghan government. Mullah Baradar is there representing the Taliban. This is a high-level representation,” Price stated.
    Across the Potomac River, Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby informed reporters that the US continues to observe the state of affairs in Afghanistan intently.
    “We are mindful of the deteriorating security situation. And our focus right now remains on supporting the Afghan forces in the field, where and when feasible we can, from the air, as well as completing our drawdown in a safe and orderly way. We are on track to do that by the end of the month,” he stated.
    “We’re certainly mindful of the advances that the Taliban have made in — in terms of taking over, an increased number of provincial capitals. Our focus is on supporting the Afghans in the field where and when we can and completing this drawdown. I’m not going to speak about planning contingencies or potential outcomes,” he stated in response to a query.
    “The other thing I’d say is that no potential outcome has to be inevitable, including the fall of Kabul, which everybody seems to be reporting about. It doesn’t have to be that way. It really depends on the kind of political and military leadership that the Afghans can muster to turn this around. They have the capability, they have the capacity, and now it’s really time to use those things,” Kirby asserted.

  • Taliban say dedicated to Afghan peace talks, need ‘genuine Islamic system’

    The Taliban mentioned on Sunday they had been dedicated to peace talks, including they wished a “genuine Islamic system” in Afghanistan that might make provisions for ladies’s rights consistent with cultural traditions and spiritual guidelines.
    The assertion got here amid sluggish progress within the talks between the hardline Islamic group and Afghan authorities representatives in Qatar and as violence rises dramatically across the nation forward of the withdrawal of overseas forces by September 11.
    Officials have raised considerations over the stalling negotiations and have mentioned the Taliban has not but submitted a written peace proposal that could possibly be used as a place to begin for substantive talks.
    “We understand that the world and Afghans have queries and questions about the form of the system to be established following withdrawal of foreign troops,” mentioned Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the pinnacle of the Taliban’s political workplace, within the assertion, including the problems had been finest addressed throughout negotiations in Doha.

    “A genuine Islamic system is the best means for solution of all issues of the Afghans,” he mentioned.
    “Our very participation in the negotiations and its support on our part indicates openly that we believe in resolving issues through (mutual) understanding.”

    He added that ladies and minorities could be protected and diplomats and NGO staff would be capable of work securely.
    “We take it on ourselves as a commitment to accommodate all rights of citizens of our country, whether they are male or female, in the light of the rules of the glorious religion of Islam and the noble traditions of the Afghan society,” he mentioned, including that ‘facilities would be provided’ for ladies to work and be educated.
    It was not clear whether or not the Taliban would permit girls to hold out public roles and whether or not workplaces and faculties could be segregated by gender.
    The group’s spokesman didn’t instantly to answer request for remark.

    In May, U.S. intelligence analysts launched an evaluation that the Taliban “would roll back much” of the progress made in Afghan girls’s rights if the Islamist extremists regained nationwide energy.
    Before being ousted by the 2001 U.S.-led invasion, the Taliban imposed a harsh model of Islamic rule that included barring ladies from faculty and ladies from working exterior their houses and prohibiting them from being in public with out a male family member.